News & Views Friday, December 09, 2016

Category: Folk Music

For beginning piano players, we have a book of seven Chanukah songs at a level two, “Festive Chanukah Songs.” Your youngster could play a different song each night! We also have a book of Chanukah songs, “The Complete Chanukah Songbook.” This collection of sheet music includes nearly one hundred songs for the season, from Jewish folk songs to more modern compositions by some of today’s songwriters. Certain questions concerning Chanukah are answered, too: Why do we eat latkes? Where did the dreidl come from? This book is one that may take up residence in the piano bench, ready to hand for the season.

Barb M. has worked in the Keyboard Department at Stanton’s since 1981. An active folk musician in the Columbus area, Barb also works with ensembles at her church and plays in the Columbus State Concert Band. In her spare time, Barb loves working with animals and computer games.

Hal Leonard’s “Ocarina Method” introduces the different kinds of ocarinas, gives a brief history of the ocarina, and how to play them. There is a fingering chart for the transverse 12-hole ocarina, and another fingering chart for the pendant 6-hole ocarina. There are plenty of songs to play to get used to your ocarina! Included with this book is online video access with further instructions and demonstrations – perfect for beginners!

It’s amazing how ocarinas have been invented independently all over the world – ancient ocarinas have been discovered in meso-America, Europe, Central Africa, India, and China. They may be made from clay, wood, animal horn, porcelain or plastic. The “concert” ocarina was invented by an Italian, Giuseppe Donati, in 1853. The ocarina has been featured in a Japanese documentary “The Great Yellow River,” “The Lord of the Rings” movies, and in “The Legend of Zelda” video games, and that is how people have become more aware of this sweet-voiced, portable little instrument. Check it out!

About the Author:Barb M. has worked in the Keyboard Department at Stanton’s since 1981. An active folk musician in the Columbus area, Barb also works with ensembles at her church and plays in the Columbus State Concert Band. In her spare time, Barb loves working with animals and computer games.

If you are reading this, you are probably a musician or associate with musicians. When you are a musician or hang with musicians, you begin to think that everyone is probably involved in music in one way or another. But, we musicians are really a fairly finite group of people.

It has been speculated that if you were to gather all people in the United States who make their living in the music industry (whether creating it, performing it, recording it, writing it, teaching it, publishing it, selling it, making and repairing instruments that play it etc), you would end up with about the same amount of people as are employed by the Kellogg’s Company – you know, the cereal and snack food folks. Yeah – a pretty finite group!

It seems unlikely that anyone involved in this tight-knit music community would intentionally keep their fellow musicians from trying to make a living. And yet, that’s what you do when you copy sheet music without permission. Sheet music is property – like a trumpet, violin or a microphone – but it’s intellectual property, which can be a bit nebulous. Basically, only the Copyright Holder has the “right” to “copy” their work. When you copy music without permission from the copyright holder, you are actually stealing it.

When you copy music without a second thought, that means the music is not being sold. Consequently, the music retailer and all their employees lose income, the music publisher and all their employees lose income, and, perhaps most tragically, the composer loses income. Your fellow musicians are being deprived of their ability to make a living.

So not only are you breaking the law by copying music, you are keeping your brothers and sisters in this finite musical community from doing what they love to do: be a musician. If they can’t make a living at it, they may have to leave and do something else. And the musical world becomes an even smaller place.

So don’t copy music without permission – it’s not only illegal, it’s immoral. Let’s make sure the livelihood of our music community is secure so we can all continue to make music – that thing we love to do!

About the Author:Dan C. has worked at Stanton’s since 1979, primarily with orchestra music and print promotions. A “working” musician, he’s a classical cellist, a rock & jazz bassist and a folk & country guitarist/singer. His free time is spent with family or reading, gardening, cycling and working puzzles. His series of musical puzzles (RP3 Rebus Puzzle Picture People) can be found on the Stanton’s Facebook page each Sunday. He also has a reputation as a pretty good joke teller. Seriously.

The amazing staff at Stanton’s knows how valuable your time is. That’s why we try to provide you with as many tools as we can to make choosing music easier, faster and more enjoyable! In this series of blog posts, we will be profiling our E-tools. Whether you are a local customer here in Columbus, OH or one of our many friends around the world, we hope you will find a way to use our E-tools!

It’s happened to all of us: You have a rehearsal or a performance coming up in a few days (or a few hours!) and you’ve lost your music; it’s they day before a competition, and your judges’ copies are nowhere to be found; you desperately need something new and fresh for your church choir to start on tonight. In many cases, Stanton’s Digital Delivery can come to your rescue!

Using the Digital Delivery website, you can purchase thousands of titles and print them at home on your home computer within minutes. In addition, many popular sheets (including pop, Broadway, country, etc) can be transposed to the key of your choosing, so you’ll always be able to have piece in a comfortable range for you. Lead lines can also be transposed for instruments such as trumpet, clarinet, saxophone and French horn. Many titles are available in convenient PDF format, so they’re ready to use right on your tablet!

You can access our Digital Delivery site directly by clicking here, where you can browse options for bands, orchestras, choirs, and solos for many different instruments. You can also use the regular Stanton’s website, where titles available for Digital Delivery have a printer icon next to their descriptions. Clicking on that icon will take you directly to that item’s page on the Digital Delivery website, where you can purchase and print.

Saint Patrick’s Day is coming! Dan Fox has arranged a book of Irish sheet music for easy piano with guitar chords and words to the songs. Some jigs, reels and hornpipes have been included as well. There are some traditional Irish songs, and quite a few Irish-American songs. There are over eighty selections for Saint Patrick’s Day, so you won’t run out of music!

For more information about this book of Irish songs or others, call 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

This collection of sheet music for baritone uke is a fun mix of American, Irish and Scottish fiddle tunes arranged for baritone uke. (You can also play them on the top four strings of a guitar.) This book includes Online Audio, which lets you stream or download the recording of the tunes. There are fifty-five tunes to choose from, which include chord symbols for anyone who wants to strum along. This is great entertainment, either for yourself or to share with friends! For more information about this collection or other baritone uke music, call us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our web site , http://www.stantons.com. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

Hal Leonard’s Violin Play-Along series has a new book of Scottish folk songs. Audio access is included, so you can use the unique code in the front of the book to access both the demonstration tracks to listen to and the accompaniment tracks to play along with. The tracks can be either downloaded or streamed. “Playback+” allows the player to slow the track down without distorting the pitch.

These arrangements are not easy pieces. The solo violin part goes up into the fifth position on occasion. There are key changes within the pieces. “The Skye Boat Song” is lovely. It crosses octaves, then includes a variation before it goes back to the theme. “The Water is Wide” and “Barbara Allen” are also well arranged. A beautiful tune called “Weaving Lilt,” which I had not heard before, goes across the low, medium and high registers of the violin, with a variation before returning to the basic melody, much as “The Skye Boat Song” does.

This collection of sheet music for violin will be a source of enjoyment for hours. The audio access makes it even more fun to play. For more information about this violin music, or other folk tunes for violin/fiddle, call us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website, http://www.stantons.com. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

About the Author:

Barb M. has worked in the Keyboard Department at Stanton’s since 1981. An active folk musician in the Columbus area, Barb also works with ensembles at her church and plays in the Columbus State Concert Band. In her spare time, Barb loves working with animals and computer games.

Many people, especially people in the folk music community, have enjoyed the “Rise Up Singing” songbook for years. In my neck of the woods, it’s also called the folksinger’s bible. Many people have two copies: a newer copy, and the old, tattered one with the important notes in it from years ago. (Perhaps I should will my tattered copy to my ukulele-playing niece – it needs to stay in the family!)

Now, Peter Blood and Annie Patterson have compiled a new songbook of nearly 1200 songs: “Rise Again Songbook.” Perhaps because us Baby Boomers are getting a bit nearsighted, the print is a little bigger, and the ink a little darker. Think of it as volume two of the “Rise Up Singing” songbook. It’s full of the pop and folk songs us Boomers grew up with and we sang to our children, who now sing them too: “YMCA,” “Your Song,” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” “Cecilia,” and many more. (Are the grandkids singing these songs, now? Better check…)

To quote Billy Bragg, “A wise person once said that the only bad thing you can do to a song is not sing it.” So tune whatever instrument you strum, and buy this book. Get singing!

Barb M. has worked in the Keyboard Department at Stanton’s since 1981. An active folk musician in the Columbus area, Barb also works with ensembles at her church and plays in the Columbus State Concert Band. In her spare time, Barb loves working with animals and computer games.

It’s not easy to find easy and intermediate recorder ensemble collections,
but here at Stanton’s we have recently received two new issues from Universal Edition. The first, “The Best of Time & Rhythm for Two Recorders and Percussion,” is a collection of easy pieces for two recorders, either SS or SA, with an easy percussion part for each song. The pieces come from the British Isles and Europe.

The second collection, “The Best of Time & Rhythm for Three Recorders and Percussion,” is intermediate level. The recorder voicing is SSA. This collection includes French and German dance tunes with percussion. These collections would be fun for students on a level past the beginner stage, and the addition of percussion instruments makes the pieces even more interesting. Whether you teach recorder at school, or play recorder yourself, these would be a welcome addition to your music library!

Barb M. has worked in the Keyboard Department at Stanton’s since 1981. An active folk musician in the Columbus area, Barb also works with ensembles at her church and plays in the Columbus State Concert Band. In her spare time, Barb loves working with animals and computer games.

For beginning piano players, we have a book of seven Chanukah songs at a level two, “Festive Chanukah Songs.” Your youngster could play a different song each night! We also have a book of Chanukah songs, “The Complete Chanukah Songbook.” This collection of sheet music includes nearly one hundred songs for the season, from Jewish folk songs to more modern compositions by some of today’s songwriters. Certain questions concerning Chanukah are answered, too: Why do we eat latkes? Where did the dreidl come from? This book is one that may take up residence in the piano bench, ready to hand for the season.

Barb M. has worked in the Keyboard Department at Stanton’s since 1981. An active folk musician in the Columbus area, Barb also works with ensembles at her church and plays in the Columbus State Concert Band. In her spare time, Barb loves working with animals and computer games.

This is the fourth month for our Instruments A-Z series, so we are choosing instruments that start with the letter “D”. Australia’s Aborigine people use a didgeridoo in religious ceremonies and it can be played for native dancing. It is classified as a natural trumpet. The didgeridoo is made traditionally of a hollow tree or tree limb. Non-traditional didgeridoos may be made from PVC pipe of different lengths. Five didgeridoos are shown in the picture. The top three are native-made instruments, the bottom two are not.

An example of an American-Appalachian instrument is the mountain dulcimer. It’s a member of the zither family. The dulcimer is a popular folk instrument that can be played as a solo instrument if picked, or as an accompaniment for singing if strummed. Stanton’s has books of music for dulcimer, both to learn how to play it, and books of pieces to play and sing. Give us a call, 1-800-42-MUSIC, or visit our website. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

Welcome to month #3 of “Instruments A to Z“! As promised, the instruments presented will not be common ones. The first instrument is an electronic instrument called a croix sonore. A prototype of this Nicolai Obukhov invention was built in France in 1926 by Pierre Dauvillier. It functioned along the same lines as a theremin. Obukhov wrote music for the croix sonore which was played by one of his students, Marie-Antoinette Aussenac-Broglie. Next are the Candombe drums, actually a set of three to four drums. Each of the drums has its own size, voice, and function in the ensemble. Last is the celesta, in instrument that is just over 100 years old. It was invented in 1886 by Auguste Mustel. It is a small keyboard instrument most famously used by Tschaikovsky in The Nutcracker’s “The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy“. A concert band arrangement of Harry Potter movie themes also uses a celesta at the beginning of the piece for “Hedwig’s Theme”. Contact us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website if you have questions or if you are looking for something special. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

Hal Leonard has a new “tiny” library ! There are how-to-play books, each one a handy beginner’s guide to playing ukulele, guitar,keyboard or harmonica. They are small, (3″ x 4″), and spiral bound at the top. Also offered in the “Tiny” series is a book of chords for guitar, ukulele, or keyboard, which include a photo of someone playing that chord alongside a diagram of the chord. A brief guide to music theory rounds out this series. They are easy to keep in a case or a gig bag, and very reasonably priced at $3.99. If you need to keep something handy for chords or “how-to” tips, these little books are great references! For more information about this “tiny” library, call us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

On June 5, 1965, Bob Dylan’s song, “Mister Tambourine Man“, performed by The Byrds , hit number one on the Billboard charts and stayed there for ten weeks. People still love to sing that classic hit, whether in a coffeehouse setting or any other group setting. It is in a guitar book, “Greatest 60’s Rock Guitar“, and it’s in a piano/vocal book (with guitar chords), “Early Rock Hits“. Whether you sing along or play along, it’s campfire and singing time weather! So entertain yourself and others! Get one of these collections of classic rock sheet music, and sing the night away. For more information about these collections or other similar collections, call us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!

Welcome to month #2 of “Instruments A-Z”. Our first “B” instrument is bongos. Bongos belong in the membranophone class of percussion instruments. Bongos come in a pair bolted together. One drum is larger than the other. Bongos are played with the bare hands. A “B” instrument from the aerophone group is a bullroarer. It’s not so hard to play, but you need some space to use it in-preferably outdoors! The bandura is a string instrument from Ukraine. Apparently, the more strings the instrument has, the more the bandurists like it. Watch for next month when we feature the letter “C”. Those instruments won’t necessarily be common, any more than these were. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs.

The baritone ukulele is tuned like the highest four strings of a guitar: E, B, G, D, while the soprano uke is tuned A-E-C-G. This collection for baritone ukulele has been complied by Dick Sheridan, longtime player of fretted instruments. The ukulele is his favorite fretted instrument. These classic ukulele songs are arranged for chord soloing. Chord soloing is using chords to play melody and harmony simultaneously. The melody usually is played on the first, (highest pitch), string. The combination of chord and melody makes for a richer sound. There are twenty-seven songs, including jazz, blues, barbershop, gospel, classical, folk and more. Learn or relearn some ukulele favorites, and learn to show off with some chord soloing! For more information about this collection of sheet music, or other ukulele music, call us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website, http://www.stantons.com. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs.

Have you ever tried to name one instrument for every letter of the alphabet? Some letters aren’t too hard to name the instruments for: say, the letter “c” or “t”. We will be choosing at least one instrument for each month, “A” to “Z” until we run out of letters. So this month, we start with “A”. There are different classifications of musical instruments. Idiophones are struck percussion of various kinds that have no membrane, (think “no drumhead”). “Agung a tamlang” is in this class. The 2 slit drums are on the left, the 2 beaters are on the right in this photo. The alphorn is a natural horn, which means it has no slides or valves. The Swiss Club in Columbus, Ohio, has a group that plays alphorns. An unusual stringed instrument is the Aeolian harp. People can build an Aeolian harp, but not play it. (Honest!) Watch for next month, when we feature the letter “B”!

Earth Day is just next week! Do you have your songs ready for the day? If not, have a look at today’s offering for Earth Day. Nobody’s down to Earth more than a child, right? So here is a collection, “Children’s Songs“, which is full of “earthy” songs. There are 110 songs, including “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends” and “Peter Cottontail” to celebrate the wildlife, “This Land is Your Land” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” to celebrate the great outdoors, “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring” and “Eensy Weensy Spider” to celebrate the weather. “The Farmer in the Dell” and “Old MacDonald” celebrate the growers of the food we get from the good Earth. “The Old Gray Mare” and “Oh Where, Oh where, Has My Little Dog Gone” celebrate our pets. “Happy Trails to You” celebrates our journeys across our varied landscapes. So if you are entertaining people, especially kids, this is the collection for you! For more information about this collection of sheet music or others, call us at 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website at http://www.stantons.com. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs.

Meet Stanton’s Employee Orchestra. This unique orchestra includes instruments from A to Z, literally. It includes autoharp to zither, (Three zithers). From front, left , a small zither is being played. A larger, “Perfecta” zither is in the middle row on the right. The book to learn to play these instruments is the Darr Method for Zither. Front row, second from left is an autoharp (with 21 chords). Books of all kinds are available to learn to play the autoharp, or chromaharp. First row front, third from left, is a merry mandolinist. We have lots of music for mandolins, too. In the back row, third from left, is a different sort of mandolin. It is a banjo mandolin. In the front row on the right is a type of plucked psaltery called a “Melody Harp”. If you check out this link, you can find out how to get one and the music for it. We have two ukuleles in our orchestra. In the middle row to the left, there is a tenor ukulele. In the back row on the left, there is a banjo ukulele (soprano version). Of course, we have lots of ukulele music. In the middle row, second from the left, is another type of zither It’s a Jubel Tone zither. You kind of have to figure it out for yourself, but if you are a string player, it’s easy. In the middle row third from the left is a ukelin. Follow this link to find out about this one. In the back row second from left is one of the more “normal” instruments in our orchestra. It is a guitar. Sure, we got music for that! Our last instrument is in the back row on the right. This is a tenor banjo. Yep, there is some music for that, too. Come visit and hear us play, sometime. (We dare you!)

Saint Patrick’s Day is coming! Dan Fox has arranged a book of Irish sheet music for easy piano with guitar chords and words to the songs. Some jigs, reels and hornpipes have been included as well. There are some traditional Irish songs, and quite a few Irish-American songs. There are over eighty selections for Saint Patrick’s Day, so you won’t run out of music! For more information about this book of Irish songs or others, call 1-800-42-MUSIC, email us at keyboard@stantons.com, or visit our website. Shop Stanton’s for all your sheet music needs!